NYPD mocked for displaying textbook on terrorism studies as proof of outside agitators at Columbia
A top New York Police Department official was mocked online after pointing to a “book on terrorism” as evidence of “outside agitators” at Columbia University’s protests against the war in Gaza.
NYPD Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry told Newsmax on Friday that authorities recovered a “book on terrorism” from Columbia’s Hamilton Hall. Showing the book to the camera, he said, “There is somebody —whether they paid or not paid — but they are radicalizing our students.”
Mr Daughtry was holding up a book titled, “Terrorism: A Very Short Introduction,” which is written by renowned British historian Charles Townshend.
“There is somebody behind this,” Mr Daughtry said, before saying police were investigating the “mastermind behind the scenes.”
This isn’t the first time he has boasted such claims, suggesting an outside force was responsible for the “radicalization” of student protesters.
“Pencils, books, laptops, those are the tools of students and what you expect to find on a college campus,” he wrote on his own X account. He noted that police also recovered helmets, hammers, goggles, ropes and gas masks from the scene.
“These are not the tools of students protesting, these are the tools of agitators, of people who were working on something nefarious,” he wrote.
The internet quickly took issue with the “outside agitators” explanation, mocking the NYPD official.
Timothy Kaldes, the deputy director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, posted on X: “If @NYPDDaughtry saw books assigned in IR & MidEast Studies his head would explode. Of course we’re assigned such books.”
“How do you think we train professionals to work on these issues? No one at NYPD has books on terrorism? You all just study ‘Die Hard’?” he added.
One X user put it plainly: “You found an academic book written by a noted historian on a university campus? Oh the horror. Try again.”
“You found a textbook? on CAMPUS?! Why would students have a textbook??” another wrote sarcastically.
Political commentator Keith Olbermann wondered aloud, “Did you find ‘Policing For Dummies’ too?”
An associate professor at Utrecht University remarked, “So @NYPDDaughtry raided a [university] and came back with a book, then blew up the cover several times the original size, glued it to a bunch of blank pages & presents the well known introductory book by a respected scholar, published by Oxford University Press as a terrorism manual.” He added a clown emoji to make his point.
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